Text-to-speech user's voice cooperative server for instant messaging clients

Abstract

A system and method to allow an author of an instant message to enable and control the production of audible speech to the recipient of the message. The voice of the author of the message is characterized into parameters compatible with a formative or articulative text-to-speech engine such that upon receipt, the receiving client device can generate audible speech signals from the message text according to the characterization of the author's voice. Alternatively, the author can store samples of his or her actual voice in a server so that, upon transmission of a message by the author to a recipient, the server extracts the samples needed only to synthesize the words in the text message, and delivers those to the receiving client device so that they are used by a client-side concatenative text-to-speech engine to generate audible speech signals having a close likeness to the actual voice of the author.

1. A method comprising:
 analyzing text within a body of a text instant message authored by an author to determine text-to-speech synthesis control parameters that are to be used to produce a synthesized audible representation of the text within the body of the text instant message; 
 extracting, from text-to-speech synthesis control parameters that are associated with said author and comprise one or more voice synthesis control parameters which determine distinctive intelligible characteristics representative of the author, a subset of the text-to-speech synthesis control parameters associated with said author, the subset corresponding to the text-to-speech synthesis control parameters determined during the analyzing as those that are to be used to produce the synthesized audible representation of the text within the body of the text instant message; 
 sending the text instant message along with said subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters to a recipient user's device, the subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters being attached to the text instant message; 
 receiving said text instant message along with said subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters by said recipients user's device; and 
 at said recipient user's device, performing text-to-speech synthesis of the text instant message according to said subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters to produce the synthesized audible representation of the text within the body of the text instant message having said distinctive intelligible characteristics representative of said author. 
 
     
     
       2. The method of  claim 1 , further comprising establishing the text to speech synthesis control parameters associated with the author, and wherein said step of establishing text-to-speech synthesis control parameters associated with said author comprises establishing one or more voice characteristic parameters compatible with a formative text-to-speech engine. 
     
     
       3. The method of  claim 1 , further comprising establishing the text to speech synthesis control parameters associated with the author, and wherein said step of establishing text-to-speech synthesis control parameters associated with said author comprises establishing one or more voice characteristic parameters compatible with an articulative text-to-speech engine. 
     
     
       4. The method of  claim 1 , further comprising establishing the text to speech synthesis control parameters associated with the author, and wherein said step of establishing text-to-speech synthesis control parameters associated with said author comprises establishing one or more phoneme samples of said author's actual voice, said one or more phoneme samples being stored by a server and being compatible with a concatenative text-to-speech engine. 
     
     
       5. The method of  claim 4 , wherein establishing one or more phoneme samples comprises the author providing spoken input via an acoustic input device which is analyzed to generate the one or more phoneme samples. 
     
     
       6. The method of  claim 1 , wherein the recipient user's device comprises a web browser device. 
     
     
       7. The method of  claim 1 , wherein the recipient user's device is a personal computer. 
     
     
       8. The method of  claim 1 , wherein the recipient user's device is a portable personal digital assistant. 
     
     
       9. The method of  claim 1 , wherein sending the text instant message along with said subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters comprises sending the text instant message and the subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters from an authoring device. 
     
     
       10. The method of  claim 1 , wherein sending the text instant message along with said subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters comprises sending the text instant message and the subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters from a server. 
     
     
       11. The method of  claim 1 ,
 wherein analyzing the text within the body of the text instant message to determine the text-to-speech synthesis control parameters that are to be used to produce the synthesized audible representation of the text within the body of the text instant message comprises analyzing the text within the body of the text instant message to determine which phonemes of a set of possible phonemes are to be used to produce the synthesized audible representation of the text within the body of the text instant message. 
 
     
     
       12. A method comprising:
 analyzing text within a body of a text instant message authored by an author to determine text-to-speech synthesis control parameters that are to be used to produce a synthesized audible representation of the text within the body of the text instant message; 
 extracting, from text-to-speech synthesis control parameters that are associated with said author and comprise one or more voice synthesis control parameters which determine distinctive intelligible characteristics representative of the author, a subset of the text-to-speech synthesis control parameters associated with said author, the subset corresponding to the text-to-speech synthesis control parameters determined during the analyzing as those that are to be used to produce the synthesized audible representation of the text within the body of the text instant message; and 
 sending the text instant message along with said subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters to a recipient user's device, the subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters being attached to the text instant message. 
 
     
     
       13. The method of  claim 12 , wherein the recipient user's device comprises a web browser device. 
     
     
       14. The method of  claim 12 , wherein the recipient user's device is a personal computer. 
     
     
       15. The method of  claim 12 , wherein the recipient user's device is a portable personal digital assistant. 
     
     
       16. The method of  claim 12 , wherein sending the text instant message along with said subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters comprises sending the text instant message and the subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters from an authoring device. 
     
     
       17. The method of  claim 12 , wherein sending the text instant message along with said subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters comprises sending the text instant message and the subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters from a server. 
     
     
       18. The method of  claim 12 ,
 wherein analyzing the text within the body of the text instant message to determine the text-to-speech synthesis control parameters that are to be used to produce the synthesized audible representation of the text within the body of the text instant message comprises analyzing the text within the body of the text instant message to determine which phonemes of a set of possible phonemes are to be used to produce the synthesized audible representation of the text within the body of the text instant message. 
 
     
     
       19. At least one computer readable storage device encoded with computer-readable instructions which, when executed, perform a method, the method comprising:
 analyzing text within a body of a text instant message authored by an author to determine text-to-speech synthesis control parameters that are to be used to produce a synthesized audible representation of the text within the body of the text instant message; and 
 extracting, from text-to-speech synthesis control parameters that are associated with said author and comprise one or more voice synthesis control parameters which determine distinctive intelligible characteristics representative of the author, a subset of the text-to-speech synthesis control parameters associated with said author, the subset corresponding to the text-to-speech synthesis control parameters determined during the analyzing as those that are to be used to produce the synthesized audible representation of the text within the body of the text instant message; and 
 sending the text instant message along with said subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters to a recipient user's device, the subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters being attached to the text instant message. 
 
     
     
       20. The at least one computer readable storage device of  claim 19 , wherein sending the text instant message along with said subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters comprises sending the text instant message and the subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters from a server. 
     
     
       21. The at least one computer readable storage device of  claim 19 ,
 wherein analyzing the text within the body of the text instant message to determine the text-to-speech synthesis control parameters that are to be used to produce the synthesized audible representation of the text within the body of the text instant message comprises analyzing the text within the body of the text instant message to determine which phonemes of a set of possible phonemes are to be used to produce the synthesized audible representation of the text within the body of the text instant message. 
 
     
     
       22. A method comprising:
 receiving, using a recipient user's device, from an authoring device, a text instant message along with one or more text-to-speech synthesis control parameters, said one or more text-to-speech synthesis control parameters comprising one or more voice synthesis control parameters which determine distinctive intelligible characteristics representative of an author of the text instant message, said one or more text-to-speech synthesis control parameters representing a subset of a larger set of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters associated with the author and determining said distinctive intelligible characteristics representative of the author of the text instant message; and 
 
       performing, using the recipient user's device, text-to-speech synthesis using each of said one or more text-to-speech synthesis control parameters to produce a synthesized audible representation of the text instant message and having said distinctive intelligible characteristics of said author. 
     
     
       23. The method of  claim 22 , wherein the recipient user's device comprises a web browser device. 
     
     
       24. The method of  claim 22 , wherein the recipient user's device is a personal computer. 
     
     
       25. The method of  claim 22 , wherein the recipient user's device is a portable personal digital assistant. 
     
     
       26. The at least one computer readable storage device of  claim 19 , wherein sending the text instant message along with said subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters comprises sending the text instant message and the subset of text-to-speech synthesis control parameters from an authoring device.